Connect to eduroam over wire: nl80211: Driver does not support authentication/association or connect commands

Question

I have a problem with connecting to eduroam network on wired connection. I thought that eduroam only works as wireless network, but apparently my institution also uses eduroam 802.1x authentication on wired network. I used the configuration script from cat.eduroam.org (as directed by our admins), which generated a following wpa_supplicant configuration:

 network={
   ssid="eduroam"
   key_mgmt=WPA-EAP
   pairwise=CCMP
   group=CCMP TKIP
   eap=TLS
   ca_cert="/home/freyja/cat_installer/ca.pem"
   identity="XXX@XXX"
   subject_match="XXX"
   private_key="/home/freyja/cat_installer/user.p12"
   private_key_passwd="XXX"
 }

When I issue:

sudo wpa_supplicant -ieth0 -c/home/freyja/cat_installer/cat_installer.conf

I get an error:

Successfully initialized wpa_supplicant
nl80211: Driver does not support authentication/association or connect commands
eth0: Failed to initialize driver interface

I tried using other driver:

sudo wpa_supplicant -ieth0 -D wext -c/home/freyja/cat_installer/cat_installer.conf

but this also causes errors:

ioctl[SIOCSIWMODE]: Operation not supported
ioctl[SIOCGIWRANGE]: Operation not supported
ioctl[SIOCGIWMODE]: Operation not supported
ioctl[SIOCSIWAP]: Operation not supported
ioctl[SIOCSIWESSID]: Operation not supported

I think it's an operating system issue, not fully eduroam-related (I use Debian testing -- stretch). The ethernet card works ok (it connects to standard network). Could you help me with this?

Solution

It's not an OS problem. You're trying to use Wi-Fi settings with something that's not Wi-Fi.

• First, both nl80211 and wext ("Wireless Extensions") are Wi-Fi (802.11) control interfaces – they're used for configuring things like ESSIDs, radio frequencies, and such, none of which exist on a wired connection.

  For Ethernet, use -D wired, if your version of wpa_supplicant didn't automatically detect it.

• Second, Ethernet doesn't use WPA, so key_mgmt=WPA-EAP is wrong. Set it to IEEE8021X.

  Also remove the WPA "pairwise=" and "group=" settings.

Comments

[nuoritoveri]

This worked. I was trying to solve 'connecting to wired eduroam from console' issue by various means for a long time, thank you very very much!

[user1686]

Frankly, just use NetworkManager and nmcli...

[nuoritoveri]

I can't save private key password in NetworkManager (and I don't want gnome-keyring).

[user1686]

I'm sure you can save it just fine to /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections.

[nuoritoveri]

No, when I start NetworkManager it 'eats it' from the file. I tried making it read-only, set different settings to prevent this, but then it does not want to run. I must admit this and other things made me 'angry' at this program and I don't want to use it any more.